ESSAYS 309 



limits are well known) be maintained, or destroyed. Our decision here must be 

 based largely upon presumptions ; I would summit, however, that none of the 

 phenomena of Life suffice to support the view that it is antecedently impossible 

 forthe organisedly complex protoplasmic system to determine its whole develop- 

 ment through its material constitution and nothing beyond. For we are equally 

 ignorant of the internal forces of the electronic atom ! ; but we do not therefore 

 feel called upon to supplement this lack of knowledge by either Metaphysics 

 or Entelechy ; and in the other direction we regard the internal and colonial 

 development of the Empire e.g. as fully explained by all the social factors 

 operative at any given stage, again without any ulterior agency ; and these 

 present a close analogy to growth and reproduction. 2 



Again, the organism's sensitivity to excessively minute quantities of certain 

 substances (on which Dr. Haldane lays such stress), is another necessary character 

 of a material system each of whose many and diverse constituents exists (as in the 

 cell) in very minute quantities ; while, on the other hand, it is difficult to imagine 

 why any non-physical entity should prefer such minute, rather than large quan- 

 tities. Nor, further, is this high sensitivity a peculiarly vital phenomenon ; the 

 extreme sensitiveness of spectrum analysis is well known ; but even this is 

 exceeded in the application of positive rays to chemical analysis 3 ; and the 

 suggestion may be hazarded (though it is highly speculative) that the microscopic 

 proportions of the complex group pf reagents in the living cell may facilitate 

 chemical changes at temperatures lower than are possible in laboratory experi- 

 ments. Prof. Hartog, again, appears to regard the germ cells as simple — 

 "embryonic cells undergo differentiations, losing their simplicity as they do so" 4 ; 

 but of all cells the germ cells are surely the most complex as organic systems, 

 whatever view be taken of their development. 



The complex of activities which we call Life demands therefore no wholly 

 peculiar type of influence, restricted to vital phenomena and absent from all 

 others. The distinctive characteristics of life are manifested only in all its 

 concrete details, which correspond to its peculiar extremely complex material, but 

 which as a whole are only one instance of a type more inclusive and all-pervading. 

 The terms "Vitality" and "Life" are only legitimate as are electricity, chemistry, 

 or psychology — i.e. as overlapping and inclusive, not as watertight and exclusive; 

 they imply nothing more than a complex of simpler and "lower" processes, just 

 as chemistry and electricity, or psychology and sociology, overlap, include, and 

 imply each other. The only thing absolutely peculiar to chemistry, e.g., is the 

 whole of its concrete details ; but to say this is obviously at once to invade to 

 some extent the various subdivisions both of physics and of physiology. Similarly a 

 complete sociology includes psychology, and vice versa, without these, however, 

 becoming identical or . confused with each other. Exactly so is Life nothing 

 beyond a combination, made possible by the extreme complexity of protoplasm, 

 of processes each of which taken alone falls within a simpler category which, 



1 " We know very little about the fundamental structure of the atom " 

 (Richardson, Electron Theory of Matter, p. 169). 



2 The character of early societies appears to throw light on the nature of the 

 germ ; but the subject falls outside this article. 



3 J. J. Thomson, Rays of Positive Electricity, preface, also p. 107. 



4 Problems of Reproduction, p. 257. As a single cell, the germ is certainly 

 "simple" compared to the organism; but this is to emphasise its mere external 

 aspect while totally ignoring its internal character. 



